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Rachel Benepe, Portfolio Manager at First Eagle Funds, Interviews with The Wall Street Transcript: Investing in Gold to Protect Against Downside Risk

67 WALL STREET, New York - April 1, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Investing in Gold and Other Strategies Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

In the following excerpt from the Investing in Gold and Other Strategies Report, an expert portfolio manager discusses her investment philosophy and her portfolio-construction strategy:

TWST: Would you give us two or three examples of your gold mining stock holdings and provide a brief synopsis of why you chose each for the fund?

Ms. Benepe: Our top four equity holdings are Agnico-Eagle (AEM), Goldcorp (GG), Newcrest (NCM.AX) and Randgold (GOLD). In all cases, they're all fairly similar. These are companies that operate more than one mine, they run long-lived assets, they operate in more than one country, they have been able to manage the geopolitical risk, and have been able to face operational challenges when they arise. We believe strong management teams are critical because mining is difficult and individual mines often encounter problems. What we evaluate isn't so much that a mine has a problem, it's how that management team faces those problems.

For Agnico-Eagle, 2011 was a difficult year for them. It was kind of like everything that could go wrong went wrong, and we wound up making a bigger investment in the company over that period of time in part because management recognized that there were problems and changed the risk threshold for the ounces they were mining. They instituted plans, put those plans in place, and we felt pretty confident given the people that they were going to be able to execute on fixing those issues.

Goldcorp is kind of in...

For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.